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Sarah Emma Edmonds (December 1841 - September 5, 1898) was an American woman who served as a transracial and transvestite spy for the Union in the American Civil War. She was born in New Brunswick, Canada, but moved to the United States in 1856. During the war, she enlisted, disguised as a man named Frank Thompson, and participated in several battles on the Union side, including the Battle of First Bull Run. She later served as a nurse and as a spy, continuing to disguise herself as a man and as an African American. At one point, she disguised herself as an Irish peddler with the name of Bridget O'Shea.

Edmonds career as Frank Thompson came to an end when she contracted malaria. Unable to go to the military hospital, because she would be revealed as a woman, she left the army and checked herself in to a private hospital, intending to return to military life once she had recuperated. Once she was better, however, she saw posters looking for Frank Thompson as a deserter. Rather than return to the army as a woman, she decided to serve as a female nurse.

She published Nurse and Spy in the Union Army after the war. In 1867, she married L. H. Seelye, a Canadian mechanic with whom she had three children. In 1886 she received a government pension rewarding her military service. Edmonds published Nurse and Spy in the Union Army after the war. In 1867, she married L. H. Seelye, a Canadian mechanic with whom she had three children. Edmonds died in La Porte, Texas, and is buried in Washington Cemetery, in Houston, Texas.

External links

• https://www.sandiego.edu/~kelliej/sarahedmonds.html
• http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USACWthompsonF.htm